good read
Rick Steves on Iran
re-post from Salon.com
Rick Steves with schoolgirls in Esfahan, Iran.
“I do want to make clear that Iran is not a free society. They traded away their freedom for a theocracy, out of fear. It’s just like Americans. We don’t want to torture people, we want to have civil liberties, we don’t want our government reading our mail. But when we have fear, we let fear trump our commitment to our civil liberties and decency. We allow torture, we allow the government to read our mail. It’s not because we’re bad, it’s because sometimes fear is more important than our core values. And Iran is afraid. They’ve given up democracy because they know a theocracy will stand strong against encroaching Western values.” - Rick Steves, noted travel personality quoted in Salon.com on his new film about Iran.
Watched the show this evening on KCTS – the Seattle PBS station. Worth your time.
If this view point interests you, read Eric Fromm’s “Fear of Freedom.” He has the same point of view and argues convincingly that Germans embraced Nazism out of fear during the political chaos and hyper-inflation of the post war years following WW I.